In what ways did the government attempt to hide the effects of the Blitz from the people of Britain

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Introduction

In what ways did the government attempt to hide the effects of the Blitz from the people of Britain? Straight away when the war begun the government formed the Ministry of Information. This was an attempt to regulate all the news and propaganda. 3 000 people worked for the MoI. The Government's aim was to keep up the morale of the people in Britain. The population had to happy so that they had the ability to produce enough in the factories or on the farms. To hide the effects of the Blitz from the people the government used propaganda and censorship. The government would censor photographs such as children dying in the bombing, the photograph of a school playground in Catford School as it showed dead children and any photographs of angry people or looting which were people stealing from the houses that were bombed. Newspaper articles were also taken out but only if they would cause any panic and hysteria. ...read more.

Middle

They knew that the people of Britain would feel upset and weak because of the war. This meant that women who were working the factories to produce ammunitions for the men in the war, would produce less which meant that Britain would have less of a chance on winning or even surviving after the Blitz. The BBC launched a new programme for the radio in 1940, called 'music while you play'. They hoped that this would boost up the morale of the war and would then encourage the women to increase the production of ammunitions in the factories. Another reason for using radio was so they could send out coded messages to their spies all over Europe. It was an easy way to broadcast messages widely and quickly. The television was also used by people and there was a show called 'The Kitchen Front' for the mothers. It gave the mothers recipes and helpful hints on how to save food instead of them using out all their ration book tickets at once. ...read more.

Conclusion

and 'Henry V' (1944). There were other films that were not just about war but were also amusing and romantic as this would take away the fears and worries that people had about the war. The British were not the only people that had been fooled by propaganda but so were the enemies. This was called 'Black Propaganda' and the government would send messages to the enemies to confuse and depress them to make their morale go down. One of the men who did this was a man called William Joyce. He was born in the USA and the moved to England in 1922. He went to Germany before the war broke out and he broadcast 'news' from Germany every night trying to demoralise the British. 6 million people tuned in every night when in fact it was absolutely forbidden to for them to watch it. He was nicknamed 'Lord Haw Haw'. The British government could see what he was doing and he was brought back after the war to Britain where he was found guilty and hanged. ?? ?? ?? ?? Hayley Watson 1 ...read more.

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